Qur’an burnt in Punjab
Communal tension was sparked off in Punjab on 21 and 22 March when
criminals struck at two places in the state. They desecrated a mosque at
Amritsar on 21 March and burnt a copy of the Holy Qur’an the very next
day in Patiala. Five persons, said to belong to the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu
Suraksha Samiti, burnt a copy of the Holy Qur’an in the Khairuddin
Mosque of the Hall Bazar area in Amritsar and threw pork there on 21
March. In another incident on 22 March copies of the Holy Qur’an were
burnt at the Arya Samaj Chowk in Patiala by five miscreants, one of whom
was nabbed by the local police. The Patiala incident bore an uncanny
similarity to the Amritsar except that it did not take place near a
mosque. Here too the miscreants are said to belong to the same outfit-Akhil
Bharatiya Hindu Suraksha Samiti.q